Thought of the day

Ok I just finished reading "All Families Are Psychotic" by Douglas Coupland which was a very fascinating read.  There was this passage though that really hit a nerve for me.  The book for the most part is about a mother and son who are living with AIDS and then the son has an affair with his step-mother even though he doesn't realize who she is.  She in turn also becomes positive.  Any way unto the passage that moved....

"Wade, say you didn't have AIDS.  SAy you weren't sick, that you learned you had a false positive the way Beth did.' 'Mom, you've seen how far gone I am'.....'Answer my question, Wade. Pretend.'  'What would I do.'  'Yes.'  WAde considered this at some length. "I wouldn't have any excuses, would I.'

Janet herself thought about this question.  She had no time to herself since Cissy transformed her life at the restraunt.  What would the difference between death at sixty-five and death at seventy-fivez/- those ten extra years...what would that possibly mena?  Or eighty-five--twety extra years.  She'd wanted those years badly, had mourned for their loss, yet now she had them again, and she couldn't decode their implication.

She thought about her life and how lost she felt most of it.  She thought about the way that all the truths she been taught to consider valuable invariably conflicted with the world as it is actually lived.  How could a person be so utterly lost, yet remain living.  Her time with the disease had, to her surprisemade her feel lost.  That was the one thing she knew was true.  Sickness had forced her to lookfor knowledge and solace in places she might otherwise not have dreamed of,  Sickness had forced her to to meet and connect with citizens who otherwise would have remained shadows inside cars that idled beside het at red lights.  But maybe now she would continue looking for ideas she'd never dreamed of in places once forbidden--not because she had to but because she chose to--because that had proven to be the only true path out of her brittle, unlivablelife-before-death."

As you can imagine this moved me beyond words and really got me to thinking that even though the character Janet is cured of AIDS, that more or less because of advances in medication I have been given my own life.  Twenty more years of living according to the doctor, life for me really began at 43 and by g-d am I going to live it to its full whirling, screaming tilt.  So my question for you......

What would it take for you to live life to its very fullest, no worries, no concerns what others thought, and pursue your deepest wildest dreams?  Is that even possible?  Are we living a life that we don't want, don't need or don't desire.  If that is the case why are we living like that in the first place?

Thought of the day...Love

From "Losing Julia" by Jonathan Hull.......

"Why does the longing for love have to be so acute, like desperate thirst?  Is it because love is wanting to be saved and we can never really be saved?  Maybe love is born of our fears.  Love is the heart's desire for a pain-killer; a tearful plea for a great big epidural.  Yes that's it: love is the only anesthesia that actually works.  And as people with broken hearts are really those who are just coming to, and if you've ever seen someone out of general anesthesia you know that it looks like the beginning of a broken heart.


But to find it and touch it and hold it!  What a relief, if only briefly, until the love wears off or slips through our hands.  Strange how love--that most fickle of emotions--creates the illusion of permanence right from the start, just as beauty, so fleeting and elusive, can seem timeless and infinite to behold.


If love doesn't triumph, it ought to.  For love is the one thing that feels more powerful than even death; the only respite from lives wretched absurdity.  The magic of love is not that it contains all the answers, that it eliminates the need for so many pressing questions."

So, have you ever deeply loved, as this passage suggest love is and can be?  Can love even conquer death?  As Cher asks "Do you believe in life after love"?  Is this kind of love out there for everyone?

Thought of the day: BRAVERY

"Bravery is being the only one who knows your afraid."  Franklin P. Jones

"Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death."  Omar Bradley

"The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and notwithstanding, go out to meet it." Thucydides

"The brave man is not he who feels no fear, For that were stupid and irrational; But he, whose noble soul its fear subdues, and bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from it"  Joanna Baillie

"The bravest thing you can do when you are not brave is to profess courage and act accordingly."  Corra Harris

"Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing"  Samuel Johnson

So my question today is...... how brave do you think you are?

Quote or thought of the day

Something new I think I may want to try here.  I am currently reading "Losing Julia" by Johnathan Hull and last night I read the following........

Freud says we are anxious about sex. I think we are anxious about death said Julia.  "It colors everything."

"I haven't read much Freud," I said, remembering Daniel's description of her voracious reading habits.

"Don't you think it makes sense, that underneath everything we are all terrified of dying, only we can's bring ourselves to admit it, so we complain about everything  else?  Look at the way people live their lives, you'd think they had all the time int he world.  It drives me crazy."

"You can't expect people to dwell on the fact that they'll ultimately lose everything they have and love."

"Why not?  It might make them think about what really matters."

"What does really matter?" I asked.

So my thought for the day for you is....... What does really matter?